Commentary & Reply

Dr. Richard Weitz's article "Managing
an Unpredictable Moscow" (Parameters, Winter 1999-2000)contains three fundamental errors. It errs in its assumptions, it errs
in its methodology, and it errs in the validity of its policy recommendations.

The first incorrect assumption is that the Yeltsin era is ending. The
Yeltsin era or legacy is a Russia ruled by a super-presidential system
lacking checks and balances to restrain executive power. This allowed Yeltsin
to rule by decree, initiate two brutal wars in Chechnya, and consolidate
the profits of so-called economic reforms into the hands of a hypercorrupt
group of oligarchs and "liberal" reformers. Instead of creating
the foundation of a liberal democratic society, it negated progress toward
limited government, rule of law, protection of individual rights, and transparency
in business dealings. The Yeltsin era will continue into the indefinite
future because it will benefit whichever clique holds the presidency.

The second incorrect assumption is that Vladimir Putin is only a transitional
figure. Here I am not talking specifically about Putin himself as the new
President, but about Putin as a representation of the type of persons who
are now ascendant in the Russian government. The past three prime ministers
of Russia have all been drawn from its security services--the successors
of the KGB. Recent events indicate that the Russian military has reached
a level of influence in policymaking circles possibly unprecedented in
Russian or Soviet history. The ascent of this Chekist/military influence
in the Russian government, by persons whose formative years were spent
in the most loyal and highly propagandized bodies of the Soviet Union,
is not transitional because those persons have integrated themselves into
the ruling structures of the Russian Federation.

The 1999 parliamentary election demonstrated that Putin was very popular
even among many "reformers." While some view this coalition as
a victory for "centrist" forces, in reality the so-called reformers
have surrendered liberal democratic principles for a small share of power
in the super-presidential system. Their need for Putin to continue with
past "reforms" is essentially a need to make sure they can keep
what has been stolen to date. Putin and his like are far from transitory
figures because there is no politician or coalition in Russia today with
the power to unseat him in an election, deter him in the Duma, or even
challenge him in the court of public opinion via access to a free and independent
media.

I also disagree with Dr. Weitz's use of a typical bureaucratic methodology,
presenting left, right, and center options for the future and supporting
the most neutral one, for three reasons. First, he has minimized the negatives
of the centrists. Dr. Weitz stated that future centrist governments will
be similar to Yeltsin's, with "a commitment to Western-style liberal
democracy, limited economic reforms, and the devolution of substantial
authority to regional officials." He contrasts this with a possible
communist government which he believes would "restrict press freedoms
and other liberties traditionally associated with Western liberal democracies."
But under Yeltsin, Western-style liberal democracy did not flourish, and
elections have been manipulated to provide a democratic veneer for an increasingly
authoritarian state. Not only is the KGB being resurrected, but many of
the freedoms that Weitz believes the communists would restrict have already
been restricted by the "centrists."

The second error was to mitigate the foreign policy actions of the centrists
and not see that they are almost identical to the possible foreign policy
actions he fears from a future nationalist government. By exploiting ethnic
tensions in the Caucasus and Moldova, using state energy and pipeline firms
to put political pressure on the Baltics and Central Asia, and trying to
weaken US security abroad by proliferating weapons of mass destruction,
Russia has already acted with the aggressive nationalism Weitz warns about.
Even though Dr. Weitz acknowledges Russia's past intrigues in Georgia,
Moldova, and Tajikistan, he believes that a nationalist government would
be even more aggressive. But past actions indicate that the centrist government
would have been more aggressive too, had it only had the means. A lack
of resources, not a sense of good intentions toward the Near Abroad or
the West, has been its main restraint. The centrists are already nationalists.

The third mistake is the failure to note the growing convergence in
Russian politics regarding foreign policy. Centrists, communists, and nationalists
alike believe that Russia should be a Great Power. The near universal support
for the war in Chechnya is just the tip of this sentiment. The other consensus
is in the development of a Eurasian national identity which is determined
and enunciated by its opposition to the West. Weitz sees these factors
as a problem only if Russia is ruled by nationalists. He does not see these
twin factors as part of a general foreign policy consensus. These two trends
have broad support among an electorate extremely disenchanted with Western
values after suffering a most egregious economic downturn under the twin
rubrics of "democracy" and "capitalism." What this
means is that Russia, whoever leads it, will likely pursue a foreign policy
of neo-imperialism in the Near Abroad and opposition to Western influence
in areas of Russian interest like the Balkans, the Middle East, and China.

In conclusion, most of the negatives that Dr. Weitz fears from future
communist or nationalist governments are already present in the current
centrist regime. Therefore, his shaping strategies are already overtaken
by events. We cannot shape the direction that the Russians themselves have
chosen to move in. We cannot bend Russia to the way we wish it to be. The
past decade of American attempts to do this should already be a warning
to us that this is not possible. What we should do is concentrate on recognizing
what type of Russia exists today. A clear view of the situation will prevent
us from sending good money after bad and confusing long-term neo- imperial
behavior for a transitory phase which we hope will end when a different
government takes office. Such a recognition is the true key to managing
our relations with Moscow and avoiding policies that do more harm than
good.

I wish to thank Lieutenant Colonel Wasielewski for his thoughtful commentary
on my article. Since the art of political forecasting is fraught with uncertainty
and subjectivity, we all benefit from hearing as many insightful voices
as possible.

I believe that many of our differences reflect diverging time perspectives.
Colonel Wasielewski's critique focuses on the likely policies of "whichever
clique holds the presidency." He rightly insists that we must recognize
"what type of Russia exists today." Most of his expectations
for Russia over the next few years seem reasonable. In my own article,
I was trying to speculate on how Russia might evolve over the next two
decades rather than just after the next election. The longer out one looks,
the greater the possibility that Russia might modify its present political
and economic system, and that the baneful influence of what Colonel Wasielewski
refers to as "this Chekist/military influence in the Russian
government" will wane.

I agree with Colonel Wasielewski that "we cannot bend Russia to
the way we wish it to be." But we might be able to nudge it along
in the right direction. Many factors will shape Russia's evolution during
the next few decades, and US policies can have some influence on Russia's
foreign and (admittedly less so) domestic behavior.

Incidentally, I would like to call the interested reader's attention
to two reports that appeared on Russian-American relations after I wrote
my article. They were issued this January concurrently by the Washington-based
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Council on Foreign and
Defense Policy (CFDP) in Moscow. The two influential institutions established
study groups to examine how to improve US-Russian relations over the next
few years. They are available on the Carnegie web page (www.ceip.org).

Dr. Richard Weitz

FORCE PROJECTION AND FORCE PROTECTION

To the Editor:

In "Operation Allied Force: Yet
Another Wake-Up Call for the Army?" (Parameters, Winter
1999-2000), author Jeffrey Record appears to be arguing for a fight in
the future that will not be a joint fight. The example he uses in Kosovo
is a classic example of trying to go it alone with air power. The results
are clear in two areas: (1) The Serbs achieved their strategic objective
of driving the Albanian population from Kosovo and destroying the infrastructure.
(2) A ground occupation continues to siphon off funds needed for the operational
readiness of the Army (e.g., two of ten active divisions are not combat
ready; we suffer from an increase in Operations Tempo [OPTEMPO] of more
than 300 percent; and we see unprecedented deployment of Reserve and National
Guard forces to meet world requirements).

What is clear from the lessons of the recent past is that the armies
of the world are procuring heavy forces. Our failure to maintain the lethal
punch contained in our heavy force, forsaking it for mobility, will be
paid for in higher casualties by our soldiers in the field. The fact is
that even with superior technology, the actual fighting is done close in
on the ground (see Into the Storm: A Study of Command, by Tom Clancy
with General Fred Franks, Jr.). The more lethal and survivable we can make
the force, the better. The Army is not the Marines, and we should be thinking
in terms of sustaining the fight once engaged.

Strategic lift is the real issue in force projection. Although less
glamorous than futuristic weapons, it is much more essential to the total
effectiveness of a force projected from the United States. I hope the new
technologies coming on line will be added to, not substituted for, what
works on the battlefield.

Lieutenant Colonel Nick Gibbs, AR, USAR
Louisville, Kentucky

The Author Replies:

I am well aware of the limits of air power, which were displayed in
NATO's war against Serbia to the great misfortune of the Albanian Kosovars.
I am also aware that the Army wanted to have nothing to do with that war,
in part because too many in the Army's leadership have come to equate force
protection with mission accomplishment. Happily, the Army's new Chief of
Staff understands the Army's growing disutility in the post-Cold War era
absent fundamental structural and doctrinal reform.

Jeffrey Record

THE LEGAL BASIS FOR HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTIONS

To the Editor:

Kudos to Parameters for the provocative article by Robert Tomes
("Operation Allied Force and the Legal
Basis for Humanitarian Interventions," Spring 2000). This is a
surprisingly neglected issue. NATO and NATO nation officials still have
not provided a consistent and coherent explanation of the jus ad bellum,
and neither the 1999 Alliance Strategic Concept nor the 2000 Pentagon After
Action Report to Congress fills that gap. The highly publicized and contentious
Allied Force operation may not prove, as some believe, an exception to
the core function of collective defense, and the geographic reach of future
operations may even extend to the territory of the former Soviet Union,
with Russia having of course condemned the air campaign over Kosovo as
inconsistent with the UN Charter. A sustainable international legal argument
needs to be clarified and strengthened. It is not a question of an external
droit de regard over NATO action, but of establishing a point of
reference accepted by other governments, the public, and Congress. And
it is not axiomatically a stark choice between a more effective UN Security
Council and "military imperium," as argued in the same issue
(Ambassador James E. Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode, "Back to Basics:
US Foreign Policy for the Coming Decade").

To date the justifications given have been either weak or contradictory.
For example, then Chairman of the NATO Military Committee General Klaus
Naumann testified before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on 3 November
1999 that there was no "clearly defined common interest" or "clear
and present danger," and that NATO had acted simply to uphold human
rights. The After Action Report, however, cites two further principles:
maintaining regional stability against the threat of a spill- over of the
conflict, and upholding NATO's credibility while maintaining a cooperative
relationship with Russia. Likewise, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson
stated on 15 November that "our strategic interest in preventing the
conflict from spreading coincided with our humanitarian interest in stopping
ethnic cleansing." Legally, Allied Force has been characterized as
a humanitarian "exception" to the need for a UN Security Council
mandate, as an exercise of an autonomous right to defend "values"
and of a "moral duty," but at the same time as in "support"
of Resolution 1199 of 23 September 1999, which described the situation
in Kosovo as "a threat to peace and stability in the region"
and in the "spirit" of the UN Charter. What is the "threat"--spillover
into other regions of the Balkans, when crimes against humanity are linked
to raw geopolitics, or is ethnic cleansing ipso facto an actionable affront
to humanity? All or some of the above? And if maintaining NATO consensus
and demonstrating the credibility of its threats were so important, why
did the White House publicly signal in late 1999 that it would secure victory
with or without the alliance?

In reality, it seems closer to the truth that, as then NATO Secretary
General Javier Solana stated on 22 June 1999, "To some extent, we
just have to go ahead where there are threats, and we'll work out the theory
later." Also in reality, Allied Force may well be simply a case of
sound policy, of doing the right thing, regardless of bad law.

However, unless the concept of humanitarian intervention can attract
wider regional, if not international, support as jus cogens then
the problem of a precedent being abused does indeed arise, as the author
cites regarding Hitler's Liebensraum policy--and the same could
be said of the "Brezhnev Doctrine" or Tiananmen Square to defend
"socialism" from subversion. Without a right of intervention
recognized at least among like-minded nations, we risk reverting to the
19th century, in which war in the name of "interests" other than
defense of territory or of political independence could be launched according
to the warring state's own definition of its interests, a theory which
for obvious reasons has been "generally discredited" (Peter Malanczuk,
Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law, Seventh Revised
Edition, Routledge, 1998, p. 312). And in the absence of an accepted principle,
even if not endorsed internationally, NATO will confront politically sensitive
issues about attempts to minimize civilian casualties and property destruction
and keep NATO-Russia relations on track. The potential for divisiveness
is demonstrated by the fact that NATO was never able to agree on the relatively
simple if subjective notion of "areas of interest" even during
the Cold War. And surely if judicial opinion is divided on the question
on whether a state can intervene to defend its own nationals, then intervention
on behalf of non-nationals is at best no less suspect.

It is true that the NATO Strategic Concept offers a permissive framework
for "crisis management" of the Euro-Atlantic area and is "in
conformity" with the UN Charter, with a principal, agreed purpose
of the Charter being to promote human rights. But more should be attempted
for the sake of legitimacy and public support. A first step would be to
revisit the otherwise sterile 1999 "Charter for European Security"
adopted by the 54-state Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE). The Charter notes that internal developments can pose a "threat"
to "our security," and noninterference in internal affairs is
not a defense if OSCE human rights and other commitments are violated,
although regrettably Russia did resort to that illegitimate defense regarding
outside criticism of the civil war in Chechnya after having earlier in
the 1990s championed defense of human rights. But there is no OSCE enforcement
mechanism, and the general decisionmaking rule is one of consensus. The
United States and like-minded nations should work to adapt this, which
would prove a linchpin test of whether Russia does indeed seek to join
the Western mainstream and would not risk, as Washington has traditionally
instinctively feared, undermining NATO. Another direction could be to make
more use of the precedent of the 1950 UN General Assembly "Uniting
for Peace" resolution that urged enforcement action regarding Korea
because of an obstacle in the Security Council.

A passive or dismissive attitude or ad hoc approach to justifying humanitarian
intervention risks paralysis and moral abdication. The Alliance must approach
codifying the right or even duty of humanitarian intervention with the
same energy and persistence it exhibited with Allied Force. At the dawn
of a new century, it is surely worth reflecting on Henry Kissinger's dictum,
as recorded in his classic A World Restored (Houghton Mifflin, 1957,
p. 1): "Whenever peace--conceived as the avoidance of war--has been
the primary objective . . . the international system has been at the mercy
of the most ruthless member of the international community." And,
of course, if the allies do not correct the deficiencies witnessed during
and after Allied Force with progress accurately reported to Congress, and
if the Pentagon does not adapt its primary focus on winning two major theater
wars, then diplomacy cannot be effectively matched with force through law.

John Borawski
Director of the Political Committee
NATO Parliamentary Assembly 1987-1999

To the Editor:

Robert Tomes has attempted to put lipstick on a hog by claiming an obscure
jus cogens argument may exist to lend NATO's attack on Yugoslavia
last year legitimacy under international law. In fact, most of the article
seems to establish that NATO's military campaign was illegitimate under
existing international norms, laws, and treaties. Mr. Tomes notes, correctly,
that "from a formal legal standpoint, NATO's action were illegitimate."
Intervention by sovereign states to overthrow the immoral actions of other
sovereign states has a long history, and can be justified on the basis
that they are a shock to the conscience of humanity. The long-term efforts
by the Royal Navy in the 19th century to interdict the trans-Atlantic slave
trade is one example. But let us not fool ourselves, these types of interventions
are based on only one law--the law of superior force. Mr. Tomes notes that
"if human rights violations are a legitimate reason for claiming a
threat to peace in one region, then they must be in others. Of course,
this begs the question as to why NATO or the United States fails to act
in all similar cases, a question that is answered by looking at other
motives for intervention not addressed in this article." It is
convenient to ignore similar cases for interventions in places like Chechnya,
Tibet, and numerous locales in Africa because the cost for such intervention
is far too high. This may be reality, but it is not international law.

The far graver threat we face as Americans is not that international
law is too weak to form a basis for intervention to prevent human rights
outrages, but that our own rule of law in arriving at those affirmative
decisions has been undermined by the NATO action. Our rule of law is grounded
in our Constitution, which stipulates that only Congress can declare war.
President Clinton and many of his predecessors have routinely, openly,
and in some cases, outrageously, violated this constitutional imperative.
At the time NATO attacked Yugoslavia, the Congress would not and did not
declare war as required by the Constitution. In addition, the agreement
by which the United States participated in the war, the NATO Charter, itself
does not contain any provision for launching an attack against another
state absent an attack on a NATO member. In other words, NATO's attack
was illegal under its own treaty, and the US participation was illegal
under the Constitution. I have asked the State Department to furnish me
with its legal reasoning for the basis of the NATO actions. I am still
waiting.

I support the idea that military force can be used to intervene and
stop human rights outrages. However, this should be done within the framework
of our rule of law. Our Constitution exists because it is the social contract
by which we have agreed to share the risks that form a threat to our liberty.
We are a member of NATO because it is a social contract with other nations
to share the risks that form a threat to our collective liberty. Intervene
by all means, but do it legally by making the case to the American people.
Americans have a long history of acting in just causes, they will do the
right thing, but they must agree that it is the right thing to do. That
process requires political leadership and should not be ignored for the
sake of convenience.

Mike McGlothlin
Long Beach, California

The Author Replies:

John Borawski's commentary raises important issues, makes a strong and
cogent argument, and adds important insight into the policy aspects of
NATO's intervention in Kosovo. Among his other points, he asks why is the
legal aspect of intervention such a neglected issue and why has there been
so little official communication of the jus ad bellum aspects of Allied
Force. I purpose four general answers.

Like intervention decisions, reasons for remaining silent on legal ramifications
have little to do with international law arguments. Mike McGlothlin reinforces
this point from my article in his commentary. The following paragraphs
also address his comments, although he seems to have misunderstood my objective
(for which the blame is mine).

The first answer to Mr. Borawski's comments is straightforward: the
outcome of the intervention is not yet clear. Several factors are noteworthy
here, many of which may address why the State Department has not answered
Mr. McGlothlin's requests for documentation. Official--public--reviews
of the legality of Allied Force under international law are inappropriate
while NATO forces are still engaged in consolidating the peace. This relegates
the debate to pundits, scholars, and zealots, whose views are often predetermined.
As Edward Luttwak and others have argued, it may be that the intervention
really staved off an ethnopolitical conflict that will draw regional actors
into a larger and more bloody conflict. Members of the Kosovo Liberation
Army dissatisfied with peace-making have stepped up attacks on Serb forces,
leaders of which seek to draw American forces into conflict to spoil American
will for continued US involvement. Only if NATO succeeds in the long run
will allies and others be more willing to advocate a new legal norm for
humanitarian intervention. But issue attention spans are short, and periods
lacking highly publicized genocide do not promote the focus required to
reform black letter law. (So, the best hope for reform lies in building
a customary law argument, requiring additional interventions outside the
UN system.) As McGlothlin points out, jus cogens is an obscure international
law tool--but in the context of my article few tools exist.

A second reason is the ongoing war crimes trials. The discovery process--
really the reading into the record of crimes, activities of the charged,
and the plight of victims--is as much for world opinion as it is for judicial
opinion. The war crimes trials, compared to the acts of violence that sparked
them, are not in the headlines or the focus of the evening news. Subsequently,
a much smaller, technical audience is tuning in. Only when the war crimes
of Kosovo, or of other events drawing humanitarian intervention, are widely
reported and followed (as was the Nuremberg Trials) will public support
for an international legal norm backed by action spring forth. Also, the
decision coming out of the war crimes trials cannot be prejudiced by a
public discussion of the legality of intervention, which would revolve
around justifications for intervention and thus the crimes being tried.
As for deeper American values and preserving the morality underscoring
our Constitution, our best hope for the spread of the ethos of democratic
responsibility is the profusion of normative institutions.

A third reason is that national security decisionmaking is rarely upheld
for legal analysis, which is another way of saying public scrutiny of national
morality. The only recent and truly successful international movement concerning
the morality of national security decisionmaking was the Ottawa Convention
to Ban Landmines. It succeeded (although not completely) through a massive
mobilization of world support. Mobilization worked partly because many
countries considered their use of landmines in the near future to be unlikely,
because hair-splitting legal and policy arrangements were made to prevent
the total ban of any future landmine use, and because the country most
likely to use landmines refused to a total ban (the United States). Many
view NATO's intervention as a further manifestation of American and Western
European attempts at world dominance (moral justification of a larger immoral
objective). Subsequently, the level of mobilization required to amend existing
agreements and laws is unlikely in the realm of intervention. Moreover,
the morality of some countries' forces has been questioned due to abuses
of power. In part this is a failing of the UN, which has leadership and
commitment problems stemming from consensus-based decisionmaking.

Finally, while I agree with Mr. Borawski that a "sustainable international
legal argument needs to be clarified and strengthened," as the lack
of any movement in this direction indicates, such arguments are likely
to surface only when interventions are being debated. For these arguments
to become "a point of reference accepted by other governments, the
public, and Congress," they must exist in an atmosphere conducive
to focusing on legal arguments rather than on the passions and politics
surrounding deployment decisions. As Borawski points out by quoting Javier
Solana, decisionmakers focus on the costs and benefits of intervention
rather than on legal theorizing: they focus on pragmatic politics and "work
out the theory later." The same is true concerning Mr. McGlothlin's
plea for a strict interpretation of the founders' Constitution. Additionally,
in an era where much tension exists between globalizing forces (including
the spread of legal norms) and sovereignty, many states are reluctant to
start down a path that weakens the formal international legal regime my
article discussed.

Despite all of this, one thing is evident: the best and most appropriate
place for a discussion of intervention to flourish is in the pages of military
and defense publications like Parameters. The military and civilian
decisionmakers who give substance to the process of informing statesmen
on interventions must be the most informed on this issue--theirs are the
voices that speak with the least political bias. They, more than many realize,
are likely to agree with John Quincy Adams's 1821 admonition that America
not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. At the same time, they
take seriously Lincoln's 1860 sentiment to have faith that right makes
might. Shaping regional security, as outlined in the National Security
Strategy, cannot be accomplished without acting to prevent threats to peace
and security from escalating.

I conclude by turning to the idea of a social contract, which Mr. McGlothlin
refers to in his commentary. This is exactly the concept we should apply
to intervention (although Mr. McGlothlin treats the concept too narrowly).
A social contract is not merely a pact between rulers and the ruled: it
is a pact to establish rules. This applies to institutionalizing
constitutional principles as much as it does to shaping a global civil
society in which democratic ideals take root and blossom.

Robert Tomes

THE ROLE OF AIR POWER IN ALLIED FORCE

To the Editor:

Dr. Earl Tilford's article "Operation
Allied Force and the Role of Air Power" (Parameters, Winter
1999-2000), is an important contribution to the ongoing debate among scholars
and policymakers on air power and the lessons of Kosovo. He rightly challenges
the official view of the Clinton Administration that Operation Allied Force
was an overwhelming success, and he makes a strong case that "air
power alone could not succeed, and it did not succeed in accomplishing
the objectives specified by President Clinton on 24 March 1999." Dr.
Tilford demonstrates convincingly the illogic of US strategy and
how the Serbs exploited the strategy's incoherence and ineptness, taking
advantage of the strategic, operational, and tactical mistakes of the allies.
He shows why hitting enemy targets and causing destruction will not necessarily
lead to achieving one's political objectives.

However, in order to advance the debate on the relevance of air power
in future operations, the question should have been posed in a different
way--instead of asking whether air power alone can do the job, the question
should be under what circumstances and for what purposes is air power
an effective tool of military coercion.Almost always, decisionmakers
use more than one instrument of pressure (both military and non-military);
they rely on diplomacy, economic sanctions, military threats or use of
force, and it is very difficult to determine the relative effect of each
of these on the opponent's decision to comply. (Take Japan in World War
II for example: What made her surrender? Was is strategic air attacks,
was it the blockade, or was it the Soviet attacks in Manchuria?) As Richard
Overy writes about the bombing of Germany and Japan, "There has always
been something fundamentally implausible about the contention of bombing's
critics that dropping almost 2.5 million tons of bombs on tautly-stretched
industrial systems and war-weary urban populations would not seriously
weaken them. The air offensive was one of the decisive elements in Allied
victory." (Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won [New York: W.
W. Norton, 1995], p. 133.) Again, this is not to argue that air power by
itself won the war, but to try to assess its contribution in the context
of the other coercive instruments used.

The debate on the role of air power for the outcome of Operation Allied
Force can be advanced through carefully discussing the role of the other
instruments of pressure that influenced Mr. Milosevic's decision calculus.
And such discussion is missing from Dr. Tilford's article. In order to
evaluate what air power did and did not accomplish, he could have discussed
the role of the alternative instruments of pressure brought to bear on
the Serbs such as:

. The sustained diplomatic efforts of the international
community and particularly the Chernomyrdin/Ahtisaari mission. The military
agreement signed at Kumanovo air base on 9 June 1999 shows that NATO did
make some significant concessions, such as: agreeing to put the peacekeeping
force under UN and not NATO auspices; restricting the deployment of KFOR
peacekeepers to Kosovo without access to the whole of Yugoslavia (as demanded
at Rambouillet); and, probably the key compromise, discarding the provisions
for a referendum to determine the future status of the province and thus
allowing Yugoslavia to retain legal sovereignty over Kosovo. By showing
Milosevic that he is politically isolated and can expect no help even from
Russia, the EU/Russian mission seems to have had a bigger influence on
Milosevic and his decision to agree to NATO's terms than is currently admitted,
but we need more evidence on that.

. KLA actions on the ground and especially its
resurgence in the latter weeks of the air campaign. Evidence shows that
the Serbs suffered the most substantial military casualties in the last
two weeks of the air campaign, coinciding with the KLA resurgence.

. The buildup of NATO ground combat power in the
region, the increased discussion and planning for the use of ground forces,
and their influence on Milosevic. For example, what was the impact of events
such as the approval of the KFOR-Plus plan and the visible preparations
for the deployment of additional forces, the 31 May decision of the US
government to allow General Wesley Clark to strengthen and widen the road
from Durres to Kukes, the role of Task Force Hawk in Albania, and the NATO
peace implementation forces in Macedonia?

. Additional forms of non-military coercion, such
as enforcing the economic sanctions against Yugoslavia, tightening travel
restrictions, freezing the financial holdings of the Milosevic regime,
and the Serbian leader's indictment by the International War Crimes Tribunal.
Dr. Tilford could have strengthened his argument by presenting data in
support of any of the above points. Since reliable evidence (especially
on the Serbian side) is hard to find, we may have to admit that, at this
point, we simply do not know enough in order to decide what exactly made
Milosevic decide to give in.

To my mind, Dr. Tilford somewhat underestimates the accomplishments
of air power in Kosovo. After all, the air strikes did cause Milosevic
to fear internal unrest (e.g., popular discontent, dissatisfaction within
the military, growing friction between the Montenegrin leaders and Belgrade)
and ultimately give in. Fostering internal dissent by striking strategic
targets was a major contribution of the air campaign. A more important
shortcoming of the article, however, is the underestimation of the severity
of the dilemma facing US decisionmakers in conflicts like this one where
truly vital US interests are not at stake but, at the same time, there
are strong humanitarian and political pressures on the US to intervene
and "do something." Dr. Tilford may be right in his attempts
to debunk the belief that precision air strikes can deliver bloodless,
low-cost victories and to show that, as it was in Kosovo, these are victories
without triumph. However, he underestimates the seductiveness of this "promise"
of air power for policymakers and that "air-alone" strategies
are bound to be tried (even though logic and experience tells us that they
hardly ever work) exactly because, politically, this may be the only feasible
strategy. Having in mind the strong domestic and international constraints
on the use of US force and the countervailing pressures to "do something"
and right the wrongs, decisionmakers often won't be able to do what is
rational and proper in terms of sound military strategy.

Dessie Zagorcheva
Doctoral student, Department of Political Science
Columbia University, New York

The Author Replies:

I am grateful to Ms. Zagorcheva for her commentary on my article, "Operation
Allied Force and the Role of Air Power." The article was narrowly
focused, as the title indicates. Indeed, my article reflects the mindset
of too many people throughout the military services who mistake the operational
for the strategic, and in many cases do not seem to know the difference.

Other than the controversy over the supposed decisiveness of strategic
bombing in World War II, I concede every point made by Ms. Zagorcheva.
Even her references to Richard Overy's excellent work, Why the Allies
Won, is good because while facts are facts and there is a definitive
truth for historians to pursue, we may be wise if we never let ourselves
become convinced that we have sole possession of that truth. That's a point
air power evangelicals--along with Earl Tilford--need to keep in mind.

I wrote the article in July 1999, in the almost immediate aftermath
of the end of the bombing, just as air power enthusiasts and true believers
were bellowing, "For the first time in history air power has defeated
a land army." They were, of course, making a claim about air power
already staked out at the end of the Persian Gulf War. If one really wanted
to make a case for the pivotal role of air power in halting an enemy ground
offensive, one would hold up Operation Linebacker I, the air power response
to North Vietnam's Nguyen Hue Offensive in the spring of 1972. Air power
has possessed some unique and awesome capabilities for over a quarter of
a century, and no institution can employ those capabilities as well as
the United States Air Force. As a military force, it is "simply the
best."

As for Operation Just Cause, air power effected an outcome that was
unique in that, working in combination with a number of other political,
diplomatic, and military elements of power, it achieved the goal of compelling
Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw the Serbian army and police from Kosovo.
The wonder is that it did it so precisely, by hitting those targets that
resulted in Milosevic changing his behavior and acceding to NATO's demands.
Belgrade was not devastated and the Serbian people, for the most part,
escaped undue harm. The use of air power in Operation Allied Force was
truly a remarkable display of bombing as an instrument of compellance.
I did not make that point in my article because I had not thought it through
sufficiently to do so--a trap of writing in the immediate aftermath of
any significant event.

Ms. Zagorcheva is also right about the seductiveness implicit in the
promise of air power. The notion that victory can be purchased cheaply
and quickly through bombing has been around for almost as long as the airplane,
certainly since the last days of World War I. But today that argument is
even more appealing because of the tremendous capabilities inherent in
precision guided weapons. But as Ms. Zagorcheva points out, war is extremely
complex, far more so than air power advocates, who approach war as quintessentially
a targeting problem, seem to know or understand. Because air power enthusiasts
speak with the authority of their convictions--they really do believe
in air power--their offer is most seductive. They offer the political
leadership a seemly clear choice between the commitment of ground forces
with all the potential for bloodshed and sacrifice that entails on the
one hand, or, on the other, quick victory at minimal cost through precision
strike. Even if the political leadership does understand military power
and has some cognizant, conscious comprehension of the art of war, the
choice is too stark and the answer too apparent. A further danger is that
our capability to use violence so precisely makes it too easy to turn to
the military option. Since ultimately war is a human undertaking, one encompassing
the full range of passions that issue from hatred and revenge, when we
use violence we run the risk of unleashing the dogs of war.